Russia & Afghanistan on Frontline/World

The new season of Frontline/World debuts tonight (Thurs. Oct. 30 – check local PBS listings) with two stories which in some ways are as scary as any of the horror movies written about on this site.

One segment is a 30 minute excerpt from the hour long Life After War which follows former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes as she works with Afghans for Civil Society as she tries to rebuild a village. I’ll write more about it when the full version airs on the Sundance Channel starting December 1st (though if you don’t get Sundance, definately watch it tonight or when it goes online Monday).

Chayes was interviewed on Fresh Air in May when the documentary was being shown at film festivals. She was interviewed on the Connection Wednesday. Chayes wrote about the period the documentary crew was following her for the Christian Science Monitor (and there are a series of letter from her on the AFCS site.

There is a transcript of an interview from last week’s NOW (and there are a bunch of links at the bottom of this bio). You can listen to her reporting for NPR on Afghanistan (her last story was in January of 2000).

We were putting the finishing touches on our latest episode of
FRONTLINE/World last Friday and starting to write our newsletter to you, when suddenly we learned that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia, and the central figure in our story about Russia’s new entrepreneurs and tycoons, had been arrested by government security agents.

The circumstances of his arrest were dramatic — troops stormed
his private jet during a refueling stop in Siberia and hauled him off to
jail in Moscow — and the consequences immediate. The Russian stock market plunged, the U.S. ambassador protested, and ExxonMobil curtailed negotiations about buying into Khodorkovsky’s oil company, Yukos.

It was a stunning development in the ongoing power struggle between President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s “oligarchs,” the billionaires who preside over the country’s raucous new capitalism.

We had to delay our newsletter and “halt the presses” (actually, reboot the AVID editing machine) — and spend the last four days re-editing and re-writing our story, “Rich in Russia,” with our New York Times correspondent Sabrina Tavernise, who is the only American journalist to gain a recent TV interview with Khodorkovsky. The 40-year-old oil tycoon, worth an estimated $8 billion, now faces 10 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and fraud — charges he denies and says are politically-motivated.

“I like conducting business in an open way,” Khodorkovsky tells
FRONTLINE/World, but he says he played by different rules when he
accumulated his vast wealth during the wild days of “privatization”
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “I admit that prior to 1992 I
functioned differently. I was not breaking Russian laws, but I was still
careless. At that time, Russian law allowed us to do things that were
unthinkable in the Western business world.”

Tavernise also tracks down fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a media tycoon who was recently granted political asylum in London, and who claims there have been at least three plots to kill him.

They’ve already put an article online and streaming video of the segment will be online Monday if you miss it on PBS. Frontline/World is scheduled to air once a month this season. Talbot’s newsletter is worth subscribing to (you can fill in your email at the bottom of the frontpage of the show’s site).

,the only surviving son of Lt.Col.Mutee brawn of the Liberian army.My father served in the Liberian army under Charles Taylor and was in charge of acquisition of armaments for the prosecution of the war.And since the international community was not in support of the regime, all acquisition were secretly done.

Shortly before Charles Taylor was deposed,he gave my dad a large sum of money to acquire some more armaments overseas.Nobody had the smallest inkling that Charles Taylor would lose his seat.He then wanted to get the money back from my dad.My dad told him that the money got hooked in transit and that since the regime was no more popular in the sight of international community due to the senseless killings in our country,he was not ready to pursue any case with the fund handlers.Charles Taylor became very furious and organised the killing of my dad.I’m sure you may have read it,that Charles Taylor killed one of his closest confident and aides.It was my dad!

He,Charles Taylor did not stop at that.Suspecting that the members of my family may be aware of the whereabout of the fund,he decided to hunt us by way of intimidation and subjecting us to all kinds of pains and suffering.In the process i lost two of my brothers.My mother died long ago during child birth.

However,the truth of the matter is that my dad who fought gallantly throughout the war in support of Charles Taylor actually secured the fund somewhere as part of his spoils for the war.Today,i’m in possession of all documents and security codes relating to the fund deposits.And even though Charles Taylor is no more in power in Liberia,he stil has his Cohorts here in Liberia,taking instructions from him and committing harvoc secretly.So, i’m plainning to flee Liberia for my safety.But before i leave i want to ensure that the fund is moved outside the country.

This is why you are being contacted,to help receive the fund while i come over to meet you in your country to invest with it.Though,there will be no risk of any sort on your side,you will be handsomely rewarded by way of sharing from the booty and as a shareholder of the possible investment in your country.To say that i have passed through think and thin in the hands of Charles Taylor is to understate the obvious.So,i have deliberately not disclosed the amount involved,where it is domiciles and other details of the deposit until i hear from you,to be sure you are flowing with me.Your quick response will be apprecited please.
for sefty ll reply be sent to brawn_mike@yahoo.com.
Thank you.